Wednesday, December 07, 2005

The Tuesday Post - Wednesday Edition!

Okay, so I was asleep at the keyboard this week. I'm a bit busy.

Well, let's start out with some news that happened today: State Senator Steve Rauschenberger is pulling out of the 2006 Republican gubernatiorial contest, and aligning himself with Ron Gidwitz. Gidwitz is apparently for abortion rights, and Rauschenberger is known as a pro-life type of guy. I don't get this move by Rauschenberger. He doesn't have the money to campaign, that's true enough, but playing second fiddle to an abortion supporter seems politically risky. He might be trying to distance himself from Judy Baar Topinka, and that might not be the wisest idea. She might only be the State Treasurer, but she basically IS the heavyweight champ of the state-level GOP insiders. For whatever reason, I thought "what a crazy pair" when I heard of Rauschenberger running for Lieutenant Governor. Now, I have the theme song from "The Patty Duke Show" stuck in my head. I blame Nick at Nite.

Does the Illinois Republican Party have someone like Glenn Poshard to run for governor? If so, will he please stand up and be recognized? We need a decent downstate candidate, and badly.

I have no problems with sending in a military unit to recover their bodies should they find themselves executed. My bet is that they'll suffer from Stockholm Syndrome and convert to Islam to save their necks. How soon before they start preaching jihad against the Christian infidel? Of course, if we do what's right we'll have a rescue team sent in no time flat to pull these peacemakers out of harm's way. After all, sometimes you have to intervene to keep people from doing stupid things to themselves. If it chafes these guys so much to rescue them, better that they can complain about on tv after the fact than have another video sent out of another horrific beheading. If they're executed, the blood is on the terrorists' hands, on the hands of the activists themselves, and on those who support their mission. I'll be happy to see them returned without firing a shot, yes, even though I love irony in many of its guises. I don't think that a non-violent solution will be found unless it is backed by the threat of violence, though. American pacifists may never understand this.

Today is December 7. Do these "peacemakers" know what today represents? Would they have thrown themselves in front of US military forces and allow the brand of fascism used by the Japanese at the time to take root in Asia? Would they have asked us not to retaliate? Probably. And people would have shoved them aside as they deserve. We went through a messy, confusing, often-censored war until victory was achieved after that morning in 1941. Now we have a messy, confusing, uncensored war on our hands that people are trying to exit without victory being truly won. We removed the Ba'athists in the actual war itself. Mission accomplished there. Now in the bloody mission to rebuild Iraq and make it self-sufficient, people want to run. It is wrong to leave now when we're not done giving the Iraqis a hand up. A stable government that respects all its citizens, an army that will not cause its citizens to worry about being attacked for their differing tribal alliances or religions, and a nation with the ability to do business with the world without fear of having its peaceful interests quashed by internal troubles: this is what I hope for Iraq. This is what our troops are trying to create.

I was going to talk at length about the CPT's spokesperson not being able to answer WLS radio pundits Don Wade & Roma on the question of whether or not Iraqis prospered and were treated like human beings under Saddam Hussein, but I won't. I'll just say that if you can't tell the difference between people living in fear of a dictator and those same people living in actual peace that maybe you need to take a second look at your own moral compass. Hate the President all you want, but don't take the side of dictators just because they're opposed by Republicans.

I see that Saddam Hussein is on trial and acting every bit the pompous bastard he was when he ruled Iraq. The fact no one has punched his lights out during these outbursts is a testament to the patience of Iraqi judges. They're calmer than I would be over this.

The Indianapolis Colts are 12-0. Beautiful! Four more games to go, gang, and maybe we'll see something that hasn't been done in over 30 years.